Network fail – AGAIN

Traffic at a standstill at the junction of Park Road and Pinchbeck Road, Spalding, caused by a fault at Mille Green level crossing, Woolram Wygate.

Published:06:00Tuesday 26 May 2015

Gridlock-hit motorists in Spalding have vented their anger at Network Rail for bringing traffic chaos to the town twice in a few days.

Rush-hour motorists were caught in jams along Park Road, Pinchbeck Road and Woolram Wygate for more than four hours on Friday because of a problem at Mill Green level crossing.

It was a repeat of the problem that brought bumper-to-bumper traffic on Monday night when rail engineers took more than ten hours to repair the fault.

Fed-up commuters posted messages on our Facebook page, including Phil Cole, who said: “If the switch that says the train has cleared fails keeping the barrier down, what confidence do we have that the switch saying the train is approaching will not suffer the same problems?”

And on our website, Lincolnshire Lad commented: “I saw an ambulance on blues and twos go down Woolram Wygate only to be confronted by the closed barriers, so it had to do a 180 about turn and luckily it was able to go down Park Road to attend the emergency in Park Avenue, a total delay of more than five minutes which could have been life threatening.”

Denise Vickers, who was caught in both jams, said: “I saw residents directing traffic as cars were forced to merge into one lane, rather than two.

“This is now the fourth or fifth time something like this happened.”

A Network Rail spokesman said: “It was a technical issue with the barriers. Engineers investigated and the crossing was reopened at 7.30pm.